If you want to start selling products online, it can be a huge hassle to find the right eCommerce solution for you, especially because there’s a wide selection of online store-building tools available nowadays. You have to note and compare the different options’ performance, features, shipping options, pricing, and more.
From what we can tell, Shopify is one platform that excels in these areas. However, given there are many options available, you might be wondering if Shopify is right for you and your needs. That’s a completely valid question to ask, which is why our Shopify review will detail everything you need to know about this tool.
What Is Shopify?
As you may or may not know, Shopify is a platform that allows you to easily and conveniently create your very own online store. To save you the trouble, Shopify already has a wide array of themes and templates available for you to choose from and customize so that your online store will look and feel the way you want.
Shopify is an excellent platform for sellers who have no prior knowledge or experience with coding or design. Even without the help of a developer, Shopify allows you to build an online store on your own. That being said, this doesn’t mean that it’s not a good tool for those experienced with CSS and HTML because Shopify also offers access to coding if you prefer to make your store from scratch.
How Does It Work?
One important thing you need to know about Shopify is that it’s a hosted solution. In other words, you don’t need to purchase your own web hosting or download other software to use because Shopify already has its very own servers you can work with. That being said, you don’t actually own a copy of the service per see. Instead, you’ll be charged a monthly fee if you want to keep using the platform. When you’re subscribed to use the tool for your online store, you can access and manage it as long as you’re connected to the internet.
Shopify does most things for you, so you don’t have a lot to worry about, such as the technical aspects of creating an online store.
Plans & Pricing
Shopify offers five different plans for you to choose from, all of which have differing monthly costs. These are:
- Shopify Lite — $9
- Basic Shopify — $29
- Shopify — $79
- Advanced Shopify — $299
- Shopify Plus — custom pricing
Shopify Features
What makes Shopify a great store-building tool? For one thing, it has several features and functionalities that make online selling and website building incredibly easy for just about anyone. Listed below are only some of these features:
Templates
Shopify has a wide selection of templates, most of which look sleek and professional—perfect for any reputable online store. These templates are also incredibly responsive no matter what device you’re using, so they will still look and feel great even if you’re using your smartphone. Unfortunately, Shopify only offers a limited number of free templates (more or less 10), and this can be a bummer for those who don’t want to fork over any more cash just for their store to have a nice design.
If you do have the extra budget, Shopify has paid templates that have a price range of around $140 to $180. If you’re looking for something more affordable, external marketplaces on the web, such as Themeforest, also sell Shopify themes for a much lower price. Most of them are usually around $50, which is significantly less than buying directly from Shopify’s repertoire.
Easy Interface
Shopify is incredibly easy to use, but it also offers impressive power as an online tool. For instance, it’s actually completely possible for you to create and then launch an online store through Shopify in just one weekend—that’s how easy it is! However, if you want to take your time to create an online store that fits your requirements and vision, you can also do so.
Manage Products
Adding or importing your products through Shopify is fast and convenient. Everything is labeled properly so that anyone from all walks of life can easily know where to put the descriptions, images, price, and more. You even have the option to organize your products by type or vendor—this ensures your online store is neat and tidy.
If you have different variations of the same product, you can add a maximum of 3 options for customers to choose from, such as color, material, and size.
Abandoned Cart Recovery Tool
If you’ve been an online seller for quite some time, you probably know what an abandoned cart is. Statistics say that 2 out of 3 customers won’t actually Checkout their orders and will just leave the items in their cart. That’s a pretty high rate. Fortunately, Shopify has an abandoned cart recovery tool you can use to help with this issue.
With this tool, you can interact with the user who abandoned the order in an effort to win them back and get them to make the purchase. For instance, you can send out automated emails offering discount codes to those users.
What You Need to Know About Shipping
Yet again, Shopify’s shipping system is easy to set up, unlike other eCommerce logistics. If you’re subscribed to Advanced Shopify and Shopify Plus, you have the option to connect your online store directly to carriers such as UPS, USPS, and FedEx. Doing so ensures that your customers will be given accurate shipping costs once they proceed to Checkout.
That being said, you can also request this feature if you’re using a lower-level plan from Shopify’s support team.
Pros
- It’s super easy to use and makes the process of building your own online store as hassle-free as possible.
- The Abandoned Cart Recovery Tool is available on all Shopify plans.
- You can easily add and manage your products, and all the options available are comprehensive.
- It offers a variety of paid and free templates, all of which are fully optimized even for mobile use.
- Available on both iOS and Android devices.
Cons
- You can only add a maximum of 3 variants for each product, which can be a bit limiting.
- If you want product images to display properly, you have to ensure that they’re uploaded with the same aspect ratio.
- It uses a URL structure for blog posts and other pages that aren’t ideal if SEO is important to you.
- You’ll be charged a transaction fee unless you use Shopify Payments; however, this feature isn’t available in every country.
Conclusion
Overall, is Shopify the tool for you? Are you looking to sell your products both digitally and physically? And if so, do you want to do so conveniently? If the answer is yes, then Shopify would definitely be a good choice for you. If you’re hesitant, you can start by trying out the most basic plan first. If you like what you see, you can always upgrade your plan in the future.
